


A Morning In

by cricket_aria



Category: Stray Little Devil
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, shade of Rinka, staying devilish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 08:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8884720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricket_aria/pseuds/cricket_aria
Summary: Deviling school didn't give its students many days off, but when Pam finally has a day all to herself Linfa has a plan for what to do with it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Star of Heaven (rubylily)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubylily/gifts).



Days off from school were the best of all things, in Pam’s opinion, especially since they didn’t happen very often when you were going to a school for devils. Even on days when young devils didn’t need to go to class they were still usually expected to make sure to spend that day at their job, bringing in money for the community. So many things had changed with the world, but that wasn’t one of them.

She really needed to team up with Vine one day and try to convince the Chairman to introduce the idea of Golden Week to the devilish school system. He was a nice old man, Pam bet they could convince him in the name of learning to appreciate the culture of the country the area had gotten mixed up with. Or she guessed she could just transfer back to her old school if she really wanted more breaks badly, but that wasn’t a plan she’d ever really consider; she’d never worked at _anything_ as hard as she had to become a proper devil, and even though she’d waited so long to return to the human world she didn’t want to give that up. She hadn’t even moved back in with her parents since they lived too far from where the school had settled to stay there unless she wanted to wake up _super_ early every morning for the flight to class, though she visited them almost every day.

But now that she’d been given a free day she was going to take advantage of it, and so the first time she woke up in the morning she snuggled back under her covers and let herself drift comfortably off again. And then again the second time, with a mumbled “Go back to sleep, Zu,” when the sound of movement nearby briefly roused her again before she’d gotten to sleep in long at all. But soon her nose started twitching and she woke up for good at scents her nose hadn’t smelled for a good long time.

There was a small table propped up beside her bed that hadn’t been there before, and on it was the type of breakfast she hadn’t had in a very long time. Rice and pickled plums, miso soup, a rolled omelete, foods so familiar that they made tears prickle at her eyes even though it was silly to be homesick now that home was just a short visit away. But she didn’t sleep there anymore, and devils ate different foods than humans. Those simple familiar flavors had been lost to her tongue ever since she’d fallen between worlds.

Zu, she guessed, hadn’t been the one moving around. Not unless he’d decided to reveal a very well-hidden sweet side.

The mystery was solved in no time at all, by the door slowly swinging open as if the person coming in was trying to keep it from making any noise in case Pam was still asleep. Pam blinked, wondering whether she was still asleep after all, when she saw just who was carrying in tea-tray to join the rest of the food. “Ahh, _Rinka?_ ” she said.

It definitely appeared to be Rinka rather than Linfa. Though Linfa had been learning to smile and laugh more freely while with Pam, those smiles weren’t as bright and open as the one currently on her face. Not except during times when they were in human-dominated portions of the world, and Rinka’s personality rose closer to the surface. Her wings weren’t visible, her body wearing their old school uniform. Even her voice was softer and sweeter when she said, “Good morning, Pam! I hope I didn’t wake you up. I just wanted to surprise you since you had the day off!”

“Rin--” Pam started, then shook herself and corrected her words before she could complete them, “Linfa, what are you _doing?_ ”

The way she was acting didn’t break, she just blushed prettily and modestly lowered her eyes while she poured the tea. “I know that I can’t cook as well as you can, but I hope that you like it. I know that it’s been a long time since you had a traditional breakfast.”

“But it’s not even traditional for you...” Pam mumbled, confused, but at the sight of that bashfulness just had to take a bite to relieve it before questioning any further. The rice was a tiny bit underdone, but the taste of it alongside the sharp bite of a bit of umeboshi was extraordinarily nostalgic. It reminded her of the reaction Linfa had once confessed she’d had to the one bite she’d taken of the first meal Pam ever served her.

“Ah, is it good?” Linfa, or Rinka, Pam really wasn’t sure, asked, her fingers wringing together in a way that was as unlike the composed angel as everything else she’d been doing since coming through the door.

“It’s a good thing the law of conservation of luck doesn’t exist anymore, so I can eat as much as I want,” Pam teased with a laugh, before growing more serious again, reaching out to touch Linfa’s hand. “You didn’t answer me though. Linfa, what are you doing?”

Her smile faltered for a moment, a slight tightness forming around her eyes that looked more like Linfa showing through, but she almost immediately rallied with her smile growing brighter than ever. “I told you, I was surprising you! After breakfast I thought that maybe we could meet up with Masao and we could go to the arcade. I’d like to try to win you a phone strap from the claw machine, to match the one you got me last time.”

Pam didn’t know how she even remembered that. Pam herself could barely remember it, for her it had been months ago, as good as a whole lifetime ago, a time when the only thing she knew about devils and angels were the stories her grandma had told her. For Rinka it had been three thousand years, although Linfa had never told her how aware the Rinka part of her might have been of time passing while she dreamed.

Pam huffed a sigh, moving from just touching Linfa’s hand to grabbing it and pulling her forward. “ _Why_ are you doing this, then? You know what I mean!” She frowned as a terrible thought occurred to her. “You can’t think... Linfa, you do know that I’m happy with you as _Linfa_ , right?”

Linfa’s eyes widened, the persona she’d been displaying falling away. “No! No, that’s not what I was attempting to do.” Her eyes dropped, her hand shifting in Pam’s grip to link their fingers together. “I only thought that sometimes you might wonder how it would have been, had your life gone differently. I can be Rinka for you for a day, so you could know.”

“Ahhh,” Pam breathed, understanding at last. “I get it. But, Linfa, your plan had one problem! Of course I miss Rinka sometimes. She was my best friend ever since I first met her, and even when we’re in human territory you’re never totally _her_. But--” she tugged suddenly at Linfa’s hand, pulling her down onto the bed beside her and wrapping her free arm tightly around her. Pam’s voice became almost fierce as she went on “I fell in love with _Linfa_. I loved Rinka as my friend, and maybe if we’d been able to get older together I would have loved her as more than that one day too, but we didn’t get that chance. And I would never, ever, not even for a second, give up my Linfa for a might have been.”

With her face pressed into Linfa’s hair Pam couldn’t see her eyes to know if they were getting watery, but the breath she took in before speaking again sounded suspiciously shakey. “I never believed that you would, however it is good to hear.” Her voice dropped to a faint whisper, shy as ever at expressing her softer emotions, as she added “I love you as well. With all parts of myself.”

Pam squeezed her even more tightly before letting go with a laugh. “And to hold off any other plans like this, I’ve also never wondered how wild a relationship with Ishtar might be, so there’s no need to show up in a black corset and panties on my next free day. I mean, unless you want to as Linfa!”

“P-Pam!” Linfa exclaimed, her face turning bright red although she didn’t actually look displeased with the suggestion.

“I’m just saying!” Pam said, laughing again, then turning at last back to her breakfast tray. “Now, come on and eat with me Linfa, we can’t waste this breakfast after you worked hard on it! And then we can still go to the arcade if you want, but as you, okay? You don’t need to be anything else for me.”

Days off from school really were the best of all things, in Pam’s opinion. And with Linfa by her side right from the start this could only be the best day off that there had ever been.


End file.
